Page 96 of Shield

As I’m wondering if maybe I’m too heavy to be laying on top of Matti, there’s a movement in my belly. I jerk my head up to look at Matti, my wide-eyed gaze meeting his. He felt it, too.

“What the fuck was that?” he asks, panic in his voice.

I shake my head and slide off of him so that I’m laying on my side beside him. We both silently stare down at my belly. It happens again: a visible little bump appears as the baby moves inside me, and I shriek.

“He moved!” he gasps. “Is he supposed to do that?”

“I guess. I mean, at a certain point, right? Do you think I put too much weight on her?” I hold my hand to my belly, waiting to see if she moves again.

Matti looks up at me, his eyes big. “Wait. Did you say ‘her’? We’re having a girl?”

Fuck. I hadn’t told him that I had Dr. Rossi find out the sex for me. Matti kept calling the baby a boy, and I was nervous about telling him. Definitely didn’t want him to find out because I slipped up.

I bite my bottom lip nervously. “We’re having a girl. Is that okay? I know you wanted a boy—”

Matti cuts me off, crashing his mouth hard into mine. When he pulls back, we’re both breathless. He grins at me, his beautiful blue eyes sparkling. He whispers, “We’re having a girl. Holy shit.”

I nod, tears welling up. I’ve never seen that look in his eyes before: pure, unadulterated joy. I can’t believe that this incredible man is looking at me like this. “We’re having a girl,” I whisper back.

He presses his forehead to mine, and I bring both of my hands up to his chest, feeling his heart pounding.

Closing my eyes, I speak without thought. “I love you, Matti.”

He pulls back from me, his eyes searching my face. “You do?”

I nod, a tear escaping down my cheek. “You didn’t know?”

“I knew,” he says, wiping away my tear. “I just didn’t know ifyouknew. You’ve never said it. At least not sober.”

Swallowing hard, I try to will myself to stop crying, but my hormones betray me and more tears come. “I know. And I should have. I should have told you a long time ago. I’m sorry.”

“Kitten, don’t apologize. You’re mine. You’re having my baby.”

He rolls away and opens the nightstand drawer. When he turns back, there’s a ring in his hand—a platinum band with the biggest square-cut diamond I’ve ever seen. “And I’m hoping—baby, I’m praying—that you’ll be my wife.”

I stare at the ring, then back at him. “You’re asking me? You always just call me your wife. I didn’t think you would ever —”

“Siena, you are the fucking light of my life. I would be intotal darkness without you. I never saw myself marrying anyone before I met you, and once I found you, I couldn’t imagine my life without you.

“I should have asked you to marry me a long time ago. I should have set up a huge surprise in front of all your friends and family and asked you when you were dressed up in your favorite dress and given you the moment you deserve.” He clears his throat and looks down at the ring in his hand. “For the first time in my life, I was truly scared. Because if I proposed to you and you said ‘no,’ I knew you would leave me. And that would fucking gut me, Siena.”

I nod slowly. I know exactly what he means, the feeling he’s describing. It’s how I felt when he sent me back to my house after what happened at Aurelio’s office, when I thought he was done with me.

“Matti, I was scared, too. Scared that you would send me away again. Or that you would disappear for weeks like you did in the beginning, and I wouldn’t hear from you, much less be able to find you. Holding back on saying ‘I love you’ felt like the only way I could protect myself.”

He hangs his head for a moment, then looks back at me, meeting my gaze with sadness in his eyes. “I’m sorry you ever felt like you needed to protect yourself from me, Siena. I know I’m a selfish asshole sometimes. I know I’m always going to piss you off. But I will never hurt you, I will never leave you, and I will make sure that no one ever lays a finger on you ever again. You or our little baby girl.”

“But you’re asking me now because…” I say, watching his face as he looks up again, meeting my gaze with a slow nod.

“I’m asking you now because you finally admitted that you love me. I’m praying that this means you know thatwe are meant to be together, and that marriage is just an acknowledgment of that fact. Not something new, but a naming of something that has been true since the very beginning.” His eyes twinkle. “And it’s hard not to want to marry you when I’ve been staring at those beautiful tits for two days straight. Jesus Christ, they were big before, but now—”

“But you brought the ring with you,” I laugh, pulling the sheets up over my chest and wiping away the tears that won’t stop coming. “You didn’t know I was going to say ‘I love you.’ I didn’t know.”

Matti nods, his face serious. “I’ve been carrying this ring around with me ever since Vin brought it over the day he brought the money from the Luminous job.”

Taking another deep breath, he blows it out slowly. I’ve never seen him look truly nervous before.

He stands, wrapping a sheet around himself, and comes to my side of the bed, pulling me to the edge so that I am facing him. Holding both of my hands in one of his, he holds the ring out to me as he gets on one knee in front of me.

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